Introduction to the New ASC Standard on Employment

Welcome to our IDEA Social Innovation Lab webinar series. uh my name is Dan Samosh, I'm with the employment relations studies department at Queens University uh and I'm also a part of the IDEA team. uh Today we have a really special uh talk I think uh in part because it's a part of a series. So this is the beginning of a three-part series on the Accessible Standards Canada standard on employment. uh We have one today one on May 30th and the last one being June 13th. uh Today we're going to learn from our speakers a bit more about an overview of the standards development and some more information about the standard and then the remaining two sessions will be largely around the implementation of the standard uh as well as tools and resources to support implementation of the standard. uh For our session as always captions should be available uh you should also have French language interpretation available. If you have any issues uh please let us know in the chat or by email. uh This session also will be recorded and posted online at our website which is

www.vraie--idea.ca and the slides will also be shared online. So our webinar structure is 1 hour in total, uh we'll have our presentation and then at the end there will be a Q&A. I will moderate the Q&A uh so if you have any questions for our speakers please use the Q&A function and I'll get to your questions. uh We may not be able to get to all of them but we'll do as many as we can and for our talk today, uh without further ado we have Dr Mahadeo Sukhai and Andy Livingston with us today. They are the co-chairs of the employment technical committee for the Accessibility Standards Canada uh standard on employment. uh So I'm I'm excited for our talk today and I'll, I'll turn it to you Mahadeo. Thank you very much Dan. Good morning everyone if you are west of uh Ontario um and good afternoon if you're in Ontario and to the east. um Recognizing that this of course is the Friday before a long weekend, it's a wonderful time to actually have a presentation like this and so so thank you very much for coming uh and spending uh spending some time with us. I'm also just going to acknowledge um that uh that we do have one person from Accessibility Standards Canada in the audience um and that would be Matthew Zik who who is in charge of the standards development team, um and so so Matthew gets to bear witness as to what we say about the standard. um And uh and certainly Matthew, if if you feel like there's anything that that I'm saying or or doing that that goes a little bit of off script or tangentially, by all means please do please do um indicate that um and uh and you know we'd be happy to have that perspective. um I I do want to start by saying that that what we're going to do is is a very brief 15 minute presentation about the employment standard um, and uh and that itself is going to start with an an acknowledgement of of those who contributed to the standard itself, um and then we'll have time for uh a conversation between Andy and I that that Dan's going to moderate um that we hope the audience will participate in as well. That that's that effectively is sort of how um how how this the the standard is intended to um live and breathe and and flow and and operate and a little bit about how it came together the way it is um because it is it is something of an unusual beast as as you will understand as we go through this. um I I I want to start also by by acknowledging the members of the employment technical committee, uh the committee started with 18 folk, um we lost one individual um due to a change in role and they had to step down uh sort of 3 years into a 4-year process, uh and then then we we had that that that vacancy filled, so so at the end of the day there were 19 folk on the committee, um 17 of whom uh went from uh March of 2021 to today and and one of whom transitioned out and and was replaced by a new body. The names of everybody are available online on on the um on the ASC website uh where the employment standard is housed, um the names of the members of the technical committee are there as part of the standard and and I I I think it's really important to acknowledge that this was a team effort, um and this remains to be a team effort. I would also acknowledge Quinn Redkop who uh who is the project manager for the employment technical committee um as well as the other ASC staff who contributed to the shaping and research and writing of the standard. uh And I think also a thank you is due to the ASC leadership as well, um because we were we were given a lot of runway with this standard um and uh and it it shows in in how the standard was was put together and developed, and and uh yes it it took four years from committee formation to publication of part two, which will be the end of this month. um But I also think that that those four years were absolutely worth it um in in giving us the chance to really uh do something different around accessible employment in Canada. So so without any further um uh editorializing on my part I I want to share with you what the employment standard uh is and is based on. And and so it's based on two premises, to start with the first of those premises is that a worker interacts with their their work environment holistically as opposed to with their job tasks specifically. So there's an interaction with physical space, digital space, other humans, and policy and practice. And so in order for there to be truly accessible employment, accessibility must be integrated throughout the work environment, so that's premise number one. Premise number two is that a worker interacts with an organization over time from the beginning of the job application process through recruitment, hiring, onboarding, promotion, redeployment, career advancement, career development, performance management, right up until job exit. And so what that also meant for us was that organizations, we felt, were obligated to ensure accessibility throughout the time of a worker's engagement. Not just at the very beginning. Now these two things might seem self-evident, and if they are they happen to be so self-evident that that they aren't necessarily referenced in in other standards, but we wanted to make them the premises upon which we built the employment standard for um for Accessibility Standards Canada. So those two premises led to four axioms. One that lived experience itself is not monolithic, so everyone experiences systemic barriers in different ways, in different personal ways, right um that the experiences of of workers with disabilities who come to work with their lived experience are qualitatively different than those workers who come into their lived experience at work. We also said from an axiomatic perspective that accessibility, accessible and inclusive organizations need successfully implemented accessibility and anti-abilism policies and practices, as opposed to simply a workplace accessibility supports policy. And we also said that successful implementation of what we are calling an inclusive and accessible employment system, or a policy framework, mitigates, but by itself does not fully remove the need for accessibility supports in the workplace. So we felt that those four axioms were necessary in the construction of the standard, as well the standard for us, was a culture change tool in a few different ways. Today a lot of the um a lot of the rules around disability at work um are predicated on the medical model and focus on disability and emphasize the person um and really rely on personal barriers, not systemic barriers, um and and take what I would call a proactively responsive approach. But I underline the word responsive because the approach taken is actually one in reaction to somebody asking for something as opposed to uh as opposed to something else. um And and all of this underpins duty to accommodate and what we wanted to do was envision a tomorrow where accessible employment is actually based on the social model of disability not the medical. That focuses on the removal and prevention of barriers um as opposed to on disability, that emphasizes the working environment um that that really comes from a place of identifying systemic barriers not personal barriers, uh and takes a proactive approach rather than a proactively responsible approach uh or responsive approach,

and is ultimately accessible by design, where duty to accommodate is one tool in the toolkit as opposed to the only tool in the toolkit. um And so really what we wanted to do was change the way we think about work, today we think about work in the context of this word accommodation um in the short-term future we we were hoping that the standard will foster a a culture shift to change to think about work as accessible by design and in the long-term future in future iterations of the standard we want to really get into the anti-abbleist workplace. And so what that means is we're going to change some language in order to change the culture so we don't talk about disability we talk about barrier that's that is resonant with the Accessible Canada Act we don't talk about accommodation we talk about accessibility supports in brackets, accommodation�,
um and we don't use available on request we use always available or available on demand. There is of course tension in all of this in that existing legislation and human rights codes and for that matter existing provincial employment standards, including the Nova Scotia standard which came out while we were writing the the federal employment standard, are explicitly or implicitly built upon the medical model of disability, the need for disclosure and documentation, and duty to accommodate. Whereas the accessible Canada act and its associated standards are predicated on the social model of disability and so so there is that there's that tension between those two things that that always has to get balanced and and we we struck one balance in the development of of the standard. So when you go and read the standard, and and I do encourage you to read it, it's it's a very good read, um there are there are five requirements clauses in the standard. and And what that basically means is these five sections 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 contain the things that organizations should or shall do, uh should is a strong recommendation and shall is a you really must do this uh in order to make an accessible by design workplace. So so clause 10 is all about structural support policy and leadership, uh clause 11 about culture, engagement, and education, clause 12 recruitment, hiring, and onboarding, clause 13 retention and career development, and clause 14 is the development and maintenance of an accessibility support, or an accommodation system. Part one of the standard published in December um contains clauses 10, 12, and 13. um Part two the the second the second edition of the standard effectively, um which comes out as I said at the end of this month, contains everything. Clause 10 just to give you a bit of a a what what's inside the structure of clause 10, after an overview there is a section that talks about development, implementation, and monitoring of an employment accessibility strategy, what are the key components of that strategy? uh Roles and responsibilities in the workplace, so roles and responsibility of senior management or um and then of managers, supervisors, and internal experts. um And then the role of an organization in a unionized workplace, what's the worker role? um And then we zero in a little bit on on organizational policies and talk about the importance of policy development, uh policy domains, uh and a standalone accessibility policy, um we focus on access to information and accessibility of communications, and we focus on information technology, specifically something called a human resources information management system. Clause 11 talks about culture, engagement and education. And so after an overview we offer some requirements around workplace culture, um uh in terms of comprehensive communication strategies and worker- centered actions. We talk about leadership and communication and the commitment to inclusion and training from all levels of leadership and accountability. We talk about worker engagement, uh in terms of needs assessment uh its relationship to the employment uh accessibility strategy and championing inclusion and we talk about training and education so leadership training and organizational training in this section as well we also touch on something uh called work adjacent tasks which would be the things at work that really impact how how um people are perceived at work but are never really evaluated or talked about as as a job task um yet they also still need uh accessibility supports in behind them um clause 12 is recruitment hiring and onboarding and so so the the things here are sort of the usual things um so commitment statement as part of the recruitment process candidate recruitment and how that is uh how that's supposed to be set up to be accessible the applicant tracking system and how artificial intelligence uh has a role to play in that job postings job application process interview and assessments including interview panels and questions and then the hiring process itself onboarding and ongoing employment support so so clause 12 is very much the sort of thing that you might expect to to find in an employment standard around how accessibility is embedded in in bringing workers on board clause 13 is retention and career development and so here we talk about retention and redeployment and redeployment policies and promotion and career development and performance management and compensation and job exit clause 14 is the accessibility support or accommodation system and so here we lay out some principles uh about what an accessibility support system can look like uh because it is a policy framework uh we talk about the components of the of a comprehensive accessibility support or accommodation system uh the kinds of policies that need to be in there policy development policy requirement we talk about uh disclosure and accessibility supports provision um and then we talk about benefits and other supports as well so what other kinds of programs play into this process and the implementation uh of the accessibility support system we also provide a number of informative annexes to um to sort of supplement the requirements uh as educational and context building material there are five annexes that are in the full standard um a background and context annex as clause 15 a lived experience with disability annex uh which talks about that notion of of the distinction between um the worker who comes with the lived experience the worker who gains a lived experience while at work um as well as sort of the the idea of the the non-monolithic nature of lived experience with disability um we have a clause on on intersectional accessibility lens uh as an educational piece um talking about the intersection among accessibility disability and other lived identities um we have a uh an educational um annex on uh anti-abbleism policies uh and uh one on standalone accessibility policies and accessibility elements integrated into existing policies and that's that's uh that's the standard that is how it was put together um over the course of four years and and I'm I'm very pleased to sort of turn this over to the chat portion um for Andy and I to to sort of share some of our thoughts about um about the standard and how it was built and where it was going to go and and have audience engagement um thank you for uh for listening thank you very much Dr sukai so we're turning now yeah to our question and answer period for those in the audience uh remember you can use the Q&A function to ask your questions and I will turn to them as we go through and uh we have some questions here now too so we'll we'll get ourselves started uh our first question is a difficult one i think uh it's do you think the standard is too complicated isn't there a simpler version of this that you could come forward with andy do you want to go first you want me to go first uh I'll go first with this one since you gave the presentation i I think it can be viewed as complex um but when you look at it and all the information within it I don't think think it is there there is a much there might have been a a simpler way but we wanted to make a transformative standard that um focused on inclusive design and was transformative in the way that we um employment was thought about and also the workers journey and we also wanted to focus on um that the everyone's um lived experience is very different and their interaction um with with the workplace and how it's viewed is very different so I think um with that that as our focus when we when we brought the group together and we we created our our thought pattern of how it was going to look and we came together and and thought about how um we really wanted a culture chain as Mahario was stated in the presentation i think that our thought process is actually very clear but it's it's new and innovative and I think that's what people may view it as complicated but with with the um implementation guide and things that will come forward I think I think it will be it will be not viewed as complicated but innovative but I'll let Mahario add his thoughts to it and maybe add to what he says afterwards

so so my my perspective is it's exactly as complex as it needs to be um I mean complicated if if if we want to use that word um and and the reason I say that is is because you know I I think about I think about the workplace holistically um and I think about work holistically and and all of the elements of work that a worker interacts with are things that we need to pay attention to from an accessibility perspective certainly there's things in the standard that that we could recommend that folks do first but I actually think that um that that the standard is set up in such a way so that it recognizes the interlocking nature of work right and so so a bunch of the standard um takes a a more sort of policy oriented approach right um and so so clause 10 for example is all about policies clause 14 is all about policies clause 11 is all about culture um and clauses 12 and 13 are all about a person's individual journey through work right and and so so there's there's that balance between the policy piece and the um and the the individual journey piece but but if we if we did only the recruitment without doing the rest of the employment life cycle then a piece is missing if we only did accessible communication without doing accessible procurement a piece is missing if we only did um you know accessible applicant tracking systems and didn't pay attention to the human resources information management system pieces are missing right um if if we had an accessibility plan or an employment accessibility strategy without leadership commitments a piece is missing and and so so the the the standard was was put together from that space of you know what are all the pieces that need to be there that when they're there um and in place the system the system works and works well versus you know let let's just let's just do the thing that everyone thinks of right um and and I mean the the other thing I would say about that is everyone talks about the importance of persons with disabilities getting a job and and absolutely that is super critical um but what about keeping a job right and and the standard speaks very much to the the getting a job and keeping a job not just not just getting a job um so so that would be that would be my two cents i would actually also just acknowledge that that there are a couple members of the technical committee who are here emila is here and and Don Galant is here um and you know certainly Emil and Don if either of you have anything that you want to add as well um then by all means please one one analogy that we could use is that um if you look at the standard as a jigsaw puzzle our role as a committee was to ensure that when you were putting it together there were no pieces missing so that all the information was there and that all the journey that an employee would go through within the employment life cycle was was acknowledged and as Mahio said that um the that it wasn't just the onboarding phase but that the other phases were acknowledged and I think also that um that Mahario talked about those I can't remember the word he used in his presentation offhand But he talked about the the items that don't directly relate to employment but PE that um the assistance people need and the the water cooler type things and and those those those hidden hidden um items that are critical in maintaining a job in acquiring a job and and are present throughout the life cycle and the need for supports in those those areas as well as the obvious ones and I really do think that the committee did a good job of bringing perspectives and acknowledging the complexity of of the employment life cycle and attempting to address as many pieces in the jigsaw as they could thank you and I think uh you know one of the really nice things about the standard from from while reading it uh and I think where some of that complexity comes from is that yeah you are not trying to maintain the status quo but to shift things um and it relates to one of our next questions which is about culture change uh and the culture change within the standard so you referred to culture change by shifting language in the presentation uh can you dive deeper into that and specifically talk about uh your language choices of terms for doing away with accommodation in favor of accessibility support mario do you want to take the first shot at that yeah so so that that's that's a that's a really good question Dan um accommodation is an interestingly loaded word right and and it actually it on the one hand it it actually means you you accommodate a request you actually respond positively to the request right um and yes I get it's a legal term right which is actually why everywhere in the standard it says accommodation in brackets next to accessibility support to to make the point that we recognize and respect that it's a legal term we just don't like using it um and and so so the the the thing with the word is it it's it default assumes that I'm asking for it as opposed to um it's put in place as a matter of course right um and so so I'm going to use a couple of analogies right um and and one of them is Netflix right so so Netflix is is the the prototype and quintessential video ondemand service but it's on demand which means there's a library available to you and all you have to do with with your subscription is choose the thing that you want to watch right it's not video on request service where you actually put in a request to the Netflix Overlords that says "I want to watch Star Trek Prodigy season 2." Right uh I'm a Treky just if you don't know that that's my one obligatory Star Trek reference i've I've had my fill um and and so so um so so we we wanted to think about accessibility in that lens of we want it to be on demand not on demand in French which means to ask for it um but but on demand in English which means it's it's available when I need it as opposed to available upon request right um and and then the other thing that that we thought about is you know um let's say for example right you're in you're in a workspace where everybody gets a 13-in laptop right like a 13-inch form factor from Huelet Packard i don't know how many people can read those things but okay fine whatever um and so so whoever can't read a 13-inch monitor is going to ask for a bigger monitor for their desk what if you gave everybody either a 15-in monitor or uh a monitor for their desk upfront right then those those accommodation requests and gigantic air quotes start to go away because all of a sudden you're providing things as a matter of course that um that people don't have to ask for right so take another example my my usual bug bear about um about documentation let's say your your workplace documents are all provided in size 9 calibri for some reason um then all sorts of people are going to be asking for um for large print versions of these things or the ability to make large print copies of them for themselves but if you switched from size 9 calibri to size 14 Ariel then many of those requests go away right and so so why not imagine a world where um where we say to employers it's a lot easier for you up front to make things that everybody could use as opposed to make things that only 50% of the population could use right um and and so so that's that's that's what we um that that's what we did and where we wanted to go by by changing language because then you're not accommodating anymore right because the the technical meaning of the word doesn't even apply because you're providing something by default and so so that that's that's how we switched to accessibility supports right um and I I have I have lots of personal problems with the word accommodation because I've I've actually been in scenarios where accessibility professionals who should know better um when uh when confronted with a request for accommodation uh in various settings will actually send you hotel information as opposed to accessibility supports information right so so unfortunately hotel accommodation that's a phrase it's a thing right and and so so if if people will misunderstand that way then then let's let's find a term that people can't

misunderstand andy so sorry about the noise i got an emergency alert on on on my phones and it's not never good if you are somebody that spasms with loud noises like myself uh but um it's I think it we really wanted to go to a situation where the the need to declare and the need to disclose was was not required

um in in a traditional sense i think we wanted to create a a environment where supports were provided without the need for requesting it and focus on creating a holistic approach to um a sense of welcoming and belonging within the workplace and shift shift the thought process from um how can we accommodate this individual to how can we make the workplace as a um as an environment and all that it encompasses um supportive to allow employees to thrive within the tapestry of the workplace how they how they choose because as Mahio mentioned in the first couple of slides one thing that I wanted to mention was that people's interaction with with the employment life cycle might be at different paces or it might be at different levels or that they they might their journey might be be know it's not linear but um their journey is their journey journey and it should be acknowledged and they should be supported within it and by creating the standard the way we did uh it it creates a new new way of thinking which will hopefully evolve a greater form of discussion about how we can make the workplace more inclusive it's a really meaningful point too just about how shifting a conversation away from disclosure can help make sure that often the lowest power actor in the system which is the employee doesn't have to then take this massive risk to access what they should have access to but rather making it something at the system level that is just kind of presented that is a part of what we do and it relates to our next question uh before we get to it though I just want to mention we have lots of questions in the chat uh but if you did just join and you want to be a part of the conversation as well please use the Q&A function and I'll do my best to get to your question uh as we as we go through our conversation today uh our next question is about the balance between person centeredness and systemic approaches so can you elaborate more on the balance between that focusing on the person you know the standard has so much in it around respecting the complexity of the individual uh but then at the same time there is this systemic component to it and understanding the importance of systems within this work so can you talk about those two uh kind of positions or person centered and systemic and where they play it within the standard do you want to go ahead sure

um so so a person interacts with their environment right and um and the environment interacts with the person and so so so how one is included within a space and in this case it's employment and work we're talking about how one's included really has a lot to do with both the interaction between the person and the environment and the interaction between the person sorry the interaction between the environment and the person the interaction between the environment and the person in many ways is is mediated through sort of more systemic things and systemic barriers and policies and practices and things like that um because because that's how you actually control the environment right you you control the physical space by having a policy that says how that physical space should be accessible and then implementing that policy you control the digital space by having policies around how the digital space should be accessible and implementing that policy control communication um with with everybody by having policies around communication and and making sure that accessibility is embedded and those policies are implemented and so on um and and so so we we recognize there's sort of this birectional relationship right and so so the person influences the environment the environment influences the person um and and so so what what we ended up what we ended up doing was we ended up sort of coming at the conversation of accessibility in the workplace from both directions right um and so so we said what policies did we did did did we need to shape through the standard in order to shape the environment to be as accessible as possible by design right to be as inclusive as possible right we wanted an inclusive by design space and how do we use policy to shape that um and then the the other thing that we we needed to do was we we said you know all of this impacts a person and so so the person- centered approaches particularly in clauses 12 and 13 needed to reflect sort of the person's journey through employment as opposed to just the the the environment that they were moving through right um and so those two things sort of play off of each other a fair bit um and there's there's a lot of there's a lot of sort of play off of them i would say that that if if you asked me what were the most sort of systemsoriented parts of the standard I'd say clauses 10 11 and 14 right um because they all speak to policy and culture and 12 and 13 are more the personal journey part but I would also say that there's a lot of 10 11 and 14 that play off of the personal and and a lot of 12 and 13 that play off of the the systemic and and we we very very consciously took the time to work through all of the drafts to set it up that way um to to make sure that that that intersection was evident to the reader um and coming back to the first question you asked Dan yes it would make life more complicated potentially um but I also think that it if if you're looking for the easy solution to make workplaces accessible uh number one there isn't any such thing and number two even if there was you wouldn't find it here right um if if you're looking for steps that you can take to to make that puzzle um more accessible and inclusive this is the right standard for you right and and if you did everything in here then then you would have sort of this interlocking culture change tool right um and even if you did most of the things in here you would still have a pretty functional interlocking culture change tool but if you tried to if you tried to pick only one thing um then it wouldn't it wouldn't work at all right um and so so that's that's that's just something I think our balance between personal and and systemic you know we we we threaded that throughout and and there's there's a real philosophy that goes behind that just to add to what Mahario was saying uh from a sociological perspective which is my background I think the committee and I think the

polic you could see the person- centered approach through threaded through all the clauses which Mahario referenced but it also required a micro and macro lens into how we were thinking in the development of it in that people needed to be the focus points but in order to be supported within the employment life cycle those policy pieces needed to complement the personal journeys that people went on through the other clauses and we needed to show how those inter linked linked and how the tapestry of their journey were um were supported by uh you know inclusive structures and policies in how in how the standard was developed as a whole so when we were writing it we needed to take a a macro approach when looking at the pol policy clauses you know but we also needed that that micro approach looking at individual journey and individual perspectives and how that shapes the policy and how they're supported with those policies and the systems that that um were spoken about so I think I think from a from that perspective the two as audio so eloquently put it the two inter needed to interact and it couldn't be done from a macro level entirely and the micro level needed to be threaded throughout all the other clauses and and I would add I would add something else right like it would have been really easy for us in April of 2021 to say why don't we just clone the AOTA employment standard right um would have been really easy for us to do that except that that none of us at the time felt that that would have gotten us where we wanted to go um and so so we we were just thinking and talking about culture change right we we were aiming for something that wasn't wasn't static or wasn't even incremental by taking something that that had been in place at a province for a number of years and then moving it to the federal level we really wanted I'm going to use a physics term we wanted a quantum level culture change we wanted a jump discontinuity between here and there um recognizing that yes people have to go from here to there so there's there's a road that that people will travel to get from point A to point B um but we wanted point B to be sufficiently separated from point A that it was clear that that um that that work had to work had to go into this right um I I saw a couple of things in in the Q&A Dan where where folks were kind of asking about um standard versus regulation and process to go from standard to regulation and and also kind of some some editorial pieces around you know why were you missing a particular clause in in in the standard so so if I can if I can just answer perhaps a whole bunch of the questions in the chat by saying go ahead two things one thing is the standard was was deliberately chosen to be published in two parts um part one of the standard that was published in um in December of 2024 focused on uh focused on that employment accessibility system that employment accessibility policy and and focused on the personal journey the um the the employment life cycle as illustrated in clauses 12 and 13 what was published in December was strictly relevant to those requirement clauses so So if an annex wasn't relevant to the requirement clause it wasn't published if an annex was relevant to the requirement clause it was published right same thing with the definitions if if you look at the definitions in in um in the version published in December and then you look at the definitions in the version that's forthcoming in a couple of weeks you'll actually see that there's definitions in in the updated 2025 edition of the standard that weren't there in the 2024 edition of the standard and and so so we we did it that way because we wanted to get um we wanted to get sort of the lowerhanging fruit out there because I'm sorry all of us well I'm not sorry I'm I'm actually quite quite very stringently not sorry but but that that's a conversational term I you know the the policy piece we believe is a very lowhanging fruit right um and and starting to think about the embedding of accessibility elements in workplace policies should be lowhanging fruit for everybody right um recruitment is a lowhanging fruit for everybody right thinking about some of the things in the employment life cycle are lowhanging fruit and so we put the lowhanging fruit out there first and we put some of the heavier more complex things out in the second edition of the standard so the standard I shouldn't say part one and part two it's actually um

CAN/ASC1.12024 and CAN/ASC 1.12025 right so the 2025 edition has the more complex things um the 2024 edition did not but did tell you that they were coming which is why there were placeholders in there so that that's that's one thing the the other thing I would say is there's there's a bunch of questions around implementation and um and sort of you know is is the standard does the standard have legal force and and when's the regulation coming so um so what I would what I would say is is this the the implementation piece anticipates the second and third um talks in this series so come back in two weeks and come back two weeks after that um that's that's that's our plug for for bringing you back on the 30th of May during National Accessibility Week and bringing you back on the 13th of June so you want to know about implementation we'll talk all about implementation in in those uh in those sessions um with respect to the standard itself so the standard is a voluntary standard right um it is out there in the public domain for anybody who wants to use it to be able to use it so you know there's there's a role for advocacy in saying this is this is something that you should do not that you at this stage have to do it not that anybody has to do it at this stage nobody has to do it until it becomes regulation um but um but here's here's sort of this complete package it's there these are the puzzle pieces that you need to think about to make your workplace accessible by design um and so so we invite everybody to think about it right and so so there there's there is advocacy in saying use the standard right because this is this is the ceiling right now in Canada right in fact I would probably go so far as to be a little bit self- aggrandizing and say this is the ceiling in the world right um and uh and and so so we we we strongly recommend its use right we being the members of the technical committee um and and you know me specifically and Andy specifically as as chair vice chair of the technical committee we'd be happy if people used it and happy to talk you through how to right um but at the same time um I I think I think where where we need to appreciate is is that once the standard has been published right which is which is going to happen for the 2025 edition shortly then there's a process um for that standard to be uh sort of endorsed and recommended by the accessibility standards Canada board of directors for forwarding for regulation right so so that that's that's a process and Matthew can actually speak to what that process is if if people are interested I'm sure um and at that point um the the document goes to and and in fact in in in many ways you know I I think I think the lawyers who do the regulation have already been made aware of what's coming and so um so so the document as a standard goes to the the folks who do the regulation that's a bunch of lawyers they will take it and they'll they'll read it they'll digest it and they will create a regulation that's based on it right um when that regulation comes out the regulation has legal force um for the federal government and federally regulated industries that's that's folks in telecom and and energy and and banking and finance and you know transportation and I'm forgetting a couple I'm sure um and and so so when when the regulation is published the regulation's law and folks have to follow the law but who whoever is not within the federal remit doesn't have to follow the regulation right the standard is still there as a voluntary standard right um and so so the regulation can look just like the standard the regulation can look like a part of the standard right that's that's up to the regulators as a standards technical committee we have we have no say in what the regulators will do um but but the entirety of the standard will always exist right and it's a voluntary standard and people always have the opportunity to use it and organizations always have the opportunity to use it thank you just one thing to add um if I could is that when Mahio mentions um wanting to use the AODDA and and produce something similar I think because um Matt and his team trusted the committee um to create something um meaningful and innovative um I think we took that as a responsibility to the community [Music] um to really attempt to um change the lens of thinking and not recreate something that was already there um you know we talk about not wanting to reinvent the wheel i think when we got together um you know with all due respect to those things that had been created before I think we saw a need for something different and a different way of thinking and a different way of creating u a meaningful dialogue and I think that was our focus was we really need to um look at changing the lens at which um people with disabilities are viewed within the employment life cycle and really start to to generate a different type of discussion in the way in the way um We we look at employment um and I think we took that as a critical goal um in creating this standard and I I think the discussions that we had in our meetings um when creating it really um led to some some

uh a need for for uh transformative change and that's what we we tried to do we knew that it would be um difficult um consensus to reach but uh the committee really focused on consensus building and uh uh you know um an innovative dialogue and valuing um approaches and valuing lived experience that that um number of us had and uh and putting that at the forefront of our ethos for its creation so so I I know Mahaddio has covered a lot of things in the Q&A but I I didn't I agree with everything he said but I didn't want to interrupt him but I just wanted to make that point uh about our our goals when we got together so I I I would add to that too because somebody in the Q&A actually asked about committee composition um which is a good question and again the identities of the committee can be found in the standard document itself online right it's it's public knowledge um but I think I think what I would say is the committee was made up of a majority of persons with lived experience with disabilities um the chair and the vice chair both persons with lived experience with disabilities and and um and there was there was a lot of um there was a lot of opportunity for that lived experience um and the allyship of those who didn't identify as living with disabilities to sort of come to the table and and uh and in working through the public commentary a lot of a lot of our sort of response to comments came from the lived living and professional experience of the the committee uh members and and I I actually am not going to even attempt to quantify the number of person years of lived living and professional experience because I mean there was there was a lot of expertise at that table and there remains a lot of expertise at that Um and so so you know I think I think it's just important to note that in addition to sort of the gender balance and the geography and the sectors and all of that um that that this committee very much was um a a committee that was driven by um lived experience that went handinand glove if you will with professional expertise also something just to add at the end is that the amount of like knowledge transfer and learning that went on between the members who and the professional experience with lived experience and and professional expertise and the amount of growth that we had as a committee um was quite remarkable you know learning from each other others um different lived experience and the perspectives and and bringing those perspectives together you know as an in another life I'm a mediator and and although we were very very cordial and very very supportive throughout the committee process that those those discussions that we had about different perspectives of of the system and the employment life cycle um were really meaningful in creating you know a really um uh kind of meaningful and and and and covered many of the Jigsaw pieces that we spoke about earlier in part because of all the different perspectives we brought to the table and and and the perspectives that and our knowledge that grew from listening to those those perspectives and and the public comments and how to address them and you know the different perspectives that they brought and how we were going to integrate them into this the standard or uh addressed the comments appropriately so the process of how we came together and and promoted those dialogues was something quite remarkable that that I I think comes through in how the standard was created developed and ultimately written and I I I think too you know Andy you make a good point there was also a lot of um well this theoretically should work um and then someone saying in my experience it didn't and here's why and then having to take that into consideration because so so my my background is in is in science i'm a geneticist by training and um and the funny thing about science that people actually don't often think about is all it takes is one example of why something doesn't work to falsify a hypothesis right um just one because because if if you think X should work and you try it and it doesn't you don't need 10 different trials and have six of them not work and four of them work to tell you that it's not working in in science if it doesn't work one time then it doesn't work and that's the end of it right so so so it it there's there's sort of a methodological consensus building approach if you will and and and we we took a very similar approach almost um unintentionally in in talking a number of things through you know X should work and and oh actually well in I I've I've experienced a scenario where X doesn't work and then oh okay so so how do we actually deal with that right um and and how do we unpack that and and what are the things that we could recommend to to um to circumvent that and it didn't matter if it was an N of one scenario or an N of a million scenario right what what mattered was that you know if if there was an experience that demonstrated that the system doesn't work then how do we actually fix the system and it was also creating a problem-solving dialogue that if if somebody brought up a situation where where something didn't work in their experience listening to that individual and then figuring and sort of as a group coming together and looking at it like well how how could we prevent this happening to somebody else in a similar scenario and sort of looking at that saying okay that that experience needs to be validated how can we how can we work work as a group to um you know dialogue and approach that we we think will will will work in this scenario and I think um I'll take a little bit of credit but also credit to Mahadio in in facilitating that type of dialogue in that in that the the lived experience was validated and valued but then we came together as a collective to say how can we use that knowledge to create a standard that where where we can we can hopefully prevent this from happening to somebody else dan I I noticed that there's a bunch of things in the Q&A that we are not going to get to because we're like 5 minutes away from being done um I'm going to offer a suggestion Andy if you're okay with it um and it's it's for the it's for the folks in the idea office can we get the questions in the Q&A um because they're all answerable um and I mean like not you know the ones about where is clause 20 you know those are those are answered by by sort of the responses in the answered section right can we get copies of the slides those are answered in the responses in the answer section like Stuart's question around um around sort of the the uh legal force of the standard is a really good one and um you know Ka's question around uh around sort of culture and and and legislating attitudes is a really good one like those are questions and there's a bunch from anonymous attendees that are all really good questions and so so if if you can send them to Andy and I and then if if the idea team can actually host our answers somewhere for the group to have access to that'd be is that can absolutely be done is there any way that you can attach our answers to the slides Dan or some type of like going forward i think when when this is posted we can add perhaps a document of questions and answers of those questions that weren't responded to during the session sure that should be fine yeah thank you for for mentioning that as an idea mahario is much more organized than me i just realized that I could call up the Q&A but but uh uh just uh yeah I'm happy to work with Mahio to answer any of the participants questions because they're all meaningful and and and a very thoughtful questions as Mahario said actually I I might I might just flag that that Matthew just put in the Q&A what I said in the beginning and I don't know if Matthew heard me um which is that he was here and he could actually help answer the questions as well so so if if you sent them along then like a number of them are are questions that are actually

assem so so I would actually much rather that Matt answer them um than than Andy or I try to sort of befuddler our way along and tell you something that's ultimately not correct right um and so so if if the questions can come to to Andy and I then I'll get them to Matt and we'll we'll get you we'll we'll get you a nice answer set that's great we'll we'll make that happen and I want to make sure um we only have a few minutes left uh so before wrapping things up though if if there's any kind of last comments that you wanted to share just for a minute or so um just thank you for the opportunity it's always a pleasure to present with Mahario and also to talk about the standard i Mahario did it earlier but I just want to acknowledge my colleagues on the committee because I didn't get an opportunity to do that and the collective work that went into the standard like you know we were given this opportunity to present but we're only here because of our colleagues and the wonderful work that they did um and uh you know um and I think that should be acknowledged that it was a as Mahario said earlier it was a real team effort and the the beauty of the standard is it encompasses and intertwines so many different perspectives and I I I re I really think that that needs to be highlighted and also the fact that um ASC gave us so much trust in as Mahario said runway to to create something that as a as a vice chair I'm very proud of and uh I think I think will be meaningful as year for years to come thank you yeah and I think you know we we had a lot of people participating in the session today so I think it speaks to the importance of the standard and the innovation in the standard too uh thank you to both of you for joining us and for sharing introducing the standard for us giving us more detail on its creation implementation structure content uh and for everyone in the audience please remember we have two more sessions on the standard coming up one being May 30th and the other being June 13th where we will dig much more into implementation tools and resources around the standard and those sorts of topics uh if you did join a little later uh our presentation will be posted online on the idea website so please uh check that out there and we'll also have some question and answers the ones that um Mario and Andy didn't get to we'll post those and their answers to those questions uh and in the same way you mentioned yeah the the team behind making sure the standard could be developed we also have an amazing idea team who makes these webinars possible um so thank you to that team Akim Growal Teresa Lennox Sabrina Sha Rebecca Gwartz Emil Tampa and our French language interpreter as well so that is our session for today uh take a look at our website if you want to see more information posted through IDEA and just thank you again to our two speakers for your presentation today